DEATH OF THE PRINCESS: THE PRESS

Tabloids Diana Used Now Loom as Villains

By SARAH LYALL

Published: September 1, 1997

LONDON, Aug. 31—
''I always believed that the press would kill her in the end,'' the Princess of Wales's brother, Earl Spencer, said bitterly to the reporters clustered outside the front gates of his home in Cape Town, South Africa, early today. ''Not even I could imagine that they would take such a direct hand in her death, as seems to be the case.''

In their search for some way to come to grips with Diana's sudden, violent death, many Britons -- along with people all over the world -- found themselves agreeing today with the Earl. They focused their bewildered rage on the country's ever-popular tabloids, whose enthusiasm for publishing stories about the Princess of Wales has always been matched by the public's eagerness to read about her.

Today the partnership between the newspapers and their vast readership fell apart, and the fact that Diana seemed often to use the news media as readily as the news media used her was all but forgotten in the country's collective fury.

A crowd of people who gathered at Kensington Palace, where Diana lived, jeered and shouted at the pack of reporters sent there to describe the public reaction to her death. ''Happy now?'' yelled a city bus driver passing by, unleashing a stream of expletives as the crowd cheered.

While all of Britain's newspapers bore the brunt of the public's outrage today, it was a particular practice of the tabloids -- buying unauthorized photographs from the paparazzi, the free-lance photographers who are willing to do almost anything to secure a picture -- that came under the most intense scrutiny.

''It would appear that every proprietor and editor of every publication that has paid for intrusive and exploitative photographs of her, encouraging greedy and ruthless individuals to risk everything in pursuit of Diana's image, has blood on his hands today,'' said the Earl, as he pleaded with the reporters outside his house to leave him alone.

For some time, public officials and editors of some of Britain's so-called quality newspapers, or broadsheets, have been calling for a privacy law that would forbid the news media from intruding too aggressively into people's private lives. But France, where the accident took place, has one of the strictest privacy laws in Europe.

Even if Britain were to enact such a law, it would not prevent the sort of chase that led to Diana's death, said Alan Rusbridger, editor of the broadsheet The Guardian, who feels that the tabloids often go too far in invading people's privacy.

''I'm not sure that any privacy law would have operated here because it was in a public place and she was a public figure,'' Mr. Rusbridger said in an interview. ''But you would hope that simple editorial judgment would be used about whether or not this was a private event -- and a woman going out with a boyfriend for dinner is not by any conceivable stretch of the imagination a public occasion.''

But, as Andrew Marr, the editor of The Independent -- another broadsheet -- pointed out, photographers lucky enough to snap an exclusive photograph of a celebrity in a private moment -- embracing a new lover, eating dinner with someone other than their spouse, sunbathing in the nude -- can expect a lucrative reward from an insatiable global marketplace. Such photographers dogged Diana throughout her adult life, waiting by her car, following her down the street, taking wide-angle shots from secluded spots and selling them to the highest bidder.

''What happened in France happened not purely because the British tabloid newspapers spend a lot of money on their pictures,'' Mr. Marr said in an interview. ''So do international magazines and newspapers around the world. A member of the paparazzi who's on form and gets the right shot is said to be able to make 3 to 4 million pounds a year'' -- upwards of $6 million.

In fact, the photographer who took the first pictures of Diana and Emad al-Fayed together several weeks ago reportedly sold them for well over $1 million around the world. And today, several tabloid editors in Britain and the United States said that they had been offered the chance to buy pictures of the Princess's car just after the crash, with the mangled victims inside, but had refused.

In Britain, the situation is compounded by the fierce circulation war among the tabloids, whose editors, cowed by the newspapers' aggressively unforgiving owners, go to extremes to produce exclusive stories and photographs. ''The tabloid editors are under intense and constant pressure to deliver, and they all knew that Diana would sell papers,'' Mr. Marr said.

In the outpouring of anti-media anger that swept the nation today, it was easy to forget that the news media's relationship with Diana was at times symbiotic rather than parasitic. The Princess thrived on news coverage and sometimes courted reporters. She met regularly with her favorites, like Richard Kay from The Daily Mail, to give her side of the story of the day -- often, statements attributed to ''friends of Princess Diana'' came directly from Diana herself.

She also knew the value of, for example, appearing in an alluring dress at a high-profile event when Prince Charles was appearing somewhere else.

''It's terrible that this happened,'' James Whitaker, who covered royalty as a reporter for The Daily Mirror, told the BBC. ''But there was an element of use of the paparazzi and photographers in general that Diana used enormously to her advantage. She knew exactly how to do it.''

And for all it decries the tabloids, the public is more than willing to buy them. The Sun's daily circulation is about 3.8 million; The Mirror's is about 2.3 million.

Sir Teddy Taylor, a Tory member of Parliament, called on Britons today to force the papers to change their ways. ''The only way in which this horrific, nasty and intrusive practice would cease would be if the public at large made it clear that they do not like newspapers which engage in this kind of business,'' he told the Press Association here.

Members of Parliament said that they would consider what, if anything, could be done legislatively. Speaking of Diana, Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary, said, ''In the longer term, serious questions will have to be asked whether the aggressive intrusion into her privacy has contributed to this tragedy.''

For their part, the tabloid editors were generally keeping a low profile today, well aware that their coverage tomorrow of Diana's death would be thoroughly scrutinized. At The Sun, which on Friday printed grainy ''world exclusive'' photographs of the Princess and Mr. Fayed swimming off the coast of Sardinia, the editor, Stuart Higgins, was not making any statements. ''All questions raised are going to be answered in tomorrow's paper,'' said a spokeswoman for The Sun.

Nor would Piers Morgan, the opinionated and normally voluble editor of The Daily Mirror, agree to be interviewed.

In any case, anything that Parliament does now might be too late, Mr. Marr said, adding, ''There isn't going to be another Diana.''

Photos: ROLE OF THE PRESS -- A sad and angry Earl Spencer, brother of Diana, at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, about to speak to journalists. In early morning London, a young man reading The Sunday Times. (Reuters); HOW A TABLOID SAYS IT -- A Canadian tourist in London reads today's issue of News of the World. (Agence France-Presse)